Will the gaming love affair with World of Warcraft ever end? Not for me it hasn't - though I'm not playing as much these days - and neither, it seems, has it cooled elsewhere. Blizzard have announced that WoW has 9 million subscribers - and that's before the Burning Crusade expansion pack is launched in China. Anecdotally I'm getting the impression that things have slowed down, with many die-hard players moving off to try Lord of the Rings Online. But clearly the WoW juggernaut is rumbling on and you wouldn't bet against 10 million by the end of the year. But with competing games - such as Tabula Rasa - due relatively soon could the growth rate in subscribers subside? Or is WoW only just starting?